Turnovers Costly as Knights Lose Opener

NEW ULM, Minn. - The MLC football team turned the ball over nine times on the way to a 26-12 loss to Maranatha Baptist Bible College Saturday afternoon.

The Knights outgained the Crusaders 341-229 for the game, and won the time of possession battle 35:55 to 24:05, but allowed several long passing plays for scores, and were unable to finish drives with nine turnovers on offense.

MLC played three quarterbacks on the day, with Ryan Schmeling getting the start and going 3-7 for 23 yards with one interception. Garrett Schoch replaced him early in the second half, and went 3-10 for 63 yards passing and an interception. Joe Lindloff finished the game under center, going 4-9 for 64 yards and a touchdown, but also throwing two interceptions.

The Crusaders jumped out first with on a long touchdown pass with 4:07 to play in the first quarter, as Josiah Brendemuehl took a bubble screen pass and made a few tacklers miss on the way to a 40-yard score.

The ensuing MLC possession ended with a fumble, and MBBC struck again with a 20-yard touchdown from quarterback Phil Littrell to Logan Beer on the first play of the drive to take a 13-0 lead.

MLC had a chance to cut the deficit late in the first half, but a fumble by Tyler Dorn inside the MBBC five-yard line held the score at 13-0 at the half.

The Crusaders took the game over in the third quarter, as Ethan Rosen recovered a Tyler Dorn fumble on the first play of the half and took it all the way back for a touchdown to put MBBC up 20-0.

The Knights got on the board on a Dorn touchdown run to cut the lead to 20-6, but the Crusaders put the game away with a long touchdown pass from Littrell to Beer late in the third quarter.

Lindloff led the offensive attack with 83 yards rushing on 20 carries, while Dorn and Schmeling each had 40 yards on the ground. Mark Voss and Chris Arndt had 50 and 44 yards receiving, respectively.

Defensively, Nicholas Kressin, Doug Van Sice and Ben Hansen each had eight tackles for MLC. Peter Schlicht had two interceptions.

The Knights will return to action next week against UM-Morris. Game time is set for 1 p.m.